A Quote by David Bailey
Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.
Related Quotes
When I go on the set, I'm so rushed. When I see the actors at rehearsal, when I love it, I want to keep the mood - my mood and the actors' mood also. So I have to push the crew faster. I don't want to lose the mood.
You get to know a character that you play on-stage in a pretty profound way over a length of time. I don't want to sound highfalutin and say you become the character, you just start bringing more and more of yourself to the part until the character and actor, it's hard to tell them apart. It's some weird amalgam. In film, because of the period of time, I don't know that you ever get that deep into it.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
There's two types of character actors. There's character actors who play all different characters. Or there's actors who always play the same part; they're just a bit funny-looking.
I want to play everything. I want to be like Christian Bale: I want to be able to be Batman and then, like, his character in 'The Fighter.' That is what is so impressive about really good actors, that they can be character actors and leading men at the same time.
I think film is a world of directors. Theater is a world of actors. Or, theater is for actors as cinema is for directors. I started in theater. Filming is as complete as directing film. In theater, you are there, you have a character, you have a play, you have a light, you have a set, you have an audience, and you're in control, and every night is different depending on you and the relationship with the other actors. It's as simple as that. So, you are given all the tools.
I don't think my looks are modern. I always imagined I'd end up doing Chekhov, Ibsen and Shakespeare all my life and never play a contemporary character.
I like to go from film to film, meeting new people and playing new roles. Because actors are like children: They want to play, and I like to play.
I find it hard to work with other musicians because I know from experience that when they play, they play with their feeling, and that restricts me because I know I want to play in my own particular way.
I don't think I want to play title roles. I don't want to be the face on the poster. I don't want that pressure of having the success riding on my shoulders. I just want to play the most interesting parts. I actually think it's incredibly rare to get an interesting female character that is the lead in a film. Usually the character parts are so much more interesting to play.
'Venus in Fur' is very Polanski: you have the knife of 'Rosemary's Baby'; you have Thomas disguised as a woman as in 'The Tenant,' when Vanda puts makeup on him, it's like 'Cul de Sac'; the dress of Tess and other details that are very Polanski. He fell in love with the play because it was so much him.
No one ever has a chance to get to know the real me because I do play a bad guy, and sometimes it's hard to soak in the comments or the negativity because that's the response you want to elicit. I am a normal person, but that's part of the job. I'm playing a character, and that's my role.
Because I've done so many different roles, I don't want to repeat myself. It's getting harder and harder to find something interesting. You never know - I might never make a film again.
Someone said to me, early on in film school... if you can photograph the human face you can photograph anything, because that is the most difficult and most interesting thing to photograph.
I don't like making a film and having the actors in character too much in magazines and on the net and everything else. Because you want to keep something back.
For me, actors have to have a character, an aura, body language. They're not models. They used to call actors models. But I want them to participate in the film.
Related Authors
Amanda de Cadenet Quotes
English
Photographer
Annie Leibovitz Quotes
American
Photographer
Ansel Adams Quotes
American
Photographer
David LaChapelle Quotes
American
Photographer
Diane Arbus Quotes
American
Photographer
Elliott Erwitt Quotes
French
Photographer
Garry Winogrand Quotes
American
Photographer
Henri Cartier-Bresson Quotes
French
Photographer
Jay Maisel Quotes
American
Photographer
Lynsey Addario Quotes
American
Photographer
Martin Parr Quotes
British
Photographer
Mary Ellen Mark Quotes
American
Photographer
Nan Goldin Quotes
American
Photographer
Robert Adams Quotes
American
Photographer
Sally Mann Quotes
American
Photographer
Sam Abell Quotes
American
Photographer